By Sheena Roszell

Alberta RCMP roll out new false alarm policy

Aug 14, 2018 | 12:35 PM

RCMP in Alberta have a new policy in place they hope will improve efficiency when it comes to false alarms.

Last year, RCMP in the province responded to over 15,000 false alarm calls, equating to 8,000 human resource hours which could have been dedicated to more urgent calls.

Under the new policy which was rolled out Monday, RCMP will verify alarms before responding, and will not respond to alarms that are only triggered once.

“False alarms could be triggered just by human error, by inputting an incorrect passcode, they could be weather-related, such as high winds. It could be pets in the home. Any number of things can trigger these, but more often as not, as the review was conducted with an alarm being triggered only once, it’s a false alarm,” explained Corporal Chris Warren, Media Relations RCMP K Division.

He wants to clarify that RCMP will still respond immediately to ATM alarms, multi-zone intrusion, panic, duress, holdup, glass break, domestic violence and verified alarms, including schools and financial institutions.